With Oneself

With #3

May 19, 2019
Commonwealth Bridge Worship
Luke 12:13–21
Daniels Run Elementary School, Fairfax, VA

The past two weeks we went over what it means to be with God and what it means to be with one another. In the Christian faith, being with God is being with one another and being with one another is being with God. If we are all created in the image of God, we see the image of God, imago Dei, in each other. And if we see the image of God in each other, then we interact with one another according to this belief. How can you say that you love God, but treat others like dirt? And how can you say that you love people, yet not see the divine mystery within each person?

Being with God and being with one another essentially connects us to the greatest commandment for those who follow Jesus. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself,” (Luke 10:27). And what’s implied in this commandment is that it is made up of a trifecta of love: Love God, Love Neighbors, and then, there is Love Yourself.

If “love” and “being with” are intricately connected; if loving God is being with God, if loving one another is being with one another, then wouldn’t loving yourself somehow be connected to being with yourself?

Today, I want to reflect together on this question,

“What does it mean to be with yourself/oneself?”

I suspect this to be a more solemn topic, if not for us as individuals, then more so for us as a society. To cut to the chase, we are living in a world where being with oneself is an afterthought, regardless of whether you are an extrovert or an introvert. We are living in a world where the term “the Loneliness Epidemic” is a real societal threat that is detrimental to our mental and physical health, in the forms of depression and anxiety.

We sure have heard of this or aware of such a problem. According to a report, rates of loneliness have doubled in the United States in the last 50 years. In a survey of over 20,000 American adults, it was found that almost half of respondents reported feeling alone, left out, and isolated; and one in four shared that they rarely feel understood. In a separate study, to the question ‘how many close friends do you have whom you could turn to in a crisis,’ the most common answer today is none. To the question, ‘how many people know you well,’ half of the respondents said none.

And this is an issue not just for Americans and not just for the millennials. The UK appointed a minister of loneliness last year to combat against this very epidemic. In Japan, lonely seniors are reported to shoplift because of the community and stability they find in jail.

In a world that prides itself to be the most connected generation in human history, we are deeply suffering from the loneliness epidemic whether rich or poor, young or old, shy or outgoing. I believe that this tells us that loneliness is beyond our inability to connect with others.

In fact, I believe this more seriously reveals “our inability to be content in being with ourselves.”[1] Perhaps loneliness at its very core is not something we experience when we are isolated, but it is something that we experience when we are unable to be with ourselves as who we are.

Who here has had a hard time looking at yourself in the mirror without fixing or wanting to fix how you look? Who has had a hard time listening to yourself without being weirded out by the sound of your own voice? Who has had a hard time watching yourself on a recorded video without criticizing yourself or feeling embarrassed? Who has taken a photo and decided not to post it because you didn’t like how you came out?

These are common human experiences upon confronting our true selves face-to-face.

See, the way we perceive ourselves and what we see in a mirror is often very different. And because of this difference between expectation and reality, we become even more hypercritical of the way we are.

When we are unable to face our true selves, when we are unable to be with ourselves as who we are, it is usually because we are unable to face the big holes within ourselves. These holes are usually our own shortcomings, failures, insecurities, and resentments. And it is often very painful itself just to acknowledge and witness these holes. But being able to be with oneself is not only to withstand the sight of our imperfection but also to be able to accept and contemplate on how imperfect we are.

Upon confronting an honest reflection of yourself, the first thing we want to do is to avoid it, and the second thing we want to do is to fix it. Especially in our overly competitive society where everything is up for comparison, we are never content with the way we are, we are never satisfied with the way we look, and we are never with ourselves as who we truly are.

The way we cope with our loneliness — our inability to be with ourselves — is to distract ourselves from facing the reality. And these distractions are used as ways to avoid our true reflection or to cover up the holes we see in ourselves.

While our lives need a healthy dose of distractions, not all distractions are made equal, as some are more prone to become an addiction with potentially deadly consequences. According to Samuel Wells, addiction is the best analogy for sin, “for sin is fundamentally distraction from the reality of being with oneself, with God, with one another, and with the creation.”[2]

In today’s scripture, Jesus shares a story called “the parable of the rich fool.” And this parable needs to be read beyond the black-and-white idea on wealth, but more as a meditation on loneliness and its consequential distractions.

Here is a man who is already rich; and his land somehow produced an abundance of crop. He believes there is a problem: there is nowhere to store his abundant crops. But we the readers may notice a bigger problem: “there is no one to have a conversation with, no one whose wisdom he seeks out, no one for whom he feels responsible, no one to whom he regards himself accountable.”[3] This rich man is utterly alone and all he can do is to think to himself.

In his aloneness, despite his wealth, he is not content with himself nor with his situation. After all, the surplus of crops which his land produced ought to be considered as a gift to enjoy rather than a problem to solve. But here is a man who sees a problem.

The solution this rich man comes up with is a distraction — one that is both naïve and immature. And that is to build bigger barns for his extra crops, to say to himself, “My soul, you’ve done well! You’ve got it made and can now retire. Take it easy and have the time of your life,” to throw himself a party for one.

He delights and takes pride in this solution that he has found to his problem. If his land produces even more crops in the future, he would likely pride himself in his initial solution and find ways to further expand his barns. See, to him, the expansion of his barns serves as a distraction that keeps him away from facing his true self and his true environment — his isolation and his aloneness. His banquet of one, with no one to raise a glass or share a dance with.

Surrounding himself with all his abundant crops and possessions allows him to cover up the holes which he sees in his life. To further insulate himself from depending on other people and depending on God. To further insulate himself being with one another and being with God.

But in today’s story, God sees even further and raises an existential question to this rich man. “What would you do if you die tonight? Who will then get what you have prepared for yourself?”

The somewhat obvious answer to this question is that when he dies, his bigger barns will become useless, and all his stored goods will become useless as well. The gift that is an abundance of crops will spoil, become rotten, and go to waste. The man will have foolishly wasted his gift.

Would the story have been different if there was at least one person he cared about in his life? At least one person he depended on? Perhaps then, the surplus of crops would have truly been enjoyed as gifts: gifts to enjoy and share. Instead of first thinking of his crops as a problem, perhaps his thoughts would have been, “Yes, I can share this gift with my beloved child!” “Yes, I can share this gift with my neighbor!” “Yes, I can share this gift with the homeless community next door!”

Just like the surplus of crops was a gift, our life is a gift — something we freely received without asking. Many of us know and believe this deep down inside, but we do not often reflect on this We often come to truly understand the weight of this gift called life when death becomes prevalent in our life, when someone near and dear to us dies, or when we think for a while on our own mortality.

Earlier we started with this question, What does it mean to be with oneself?

I believe it means we acknowledge that our life is a gift from God to be enjoyed. When we look at ourselves in the mirror, we should see a gift to be enjoyed rather than a problem to be solved. Who we are, our life, and our future — all of these is a gift.

To see ourselves as a beloved gift from God means we are to accept our sacred worth as God’s beloved children (Luke 3:22).

The biggest trap of loneliness is that we start rejecting this core truth of our existence and believe in the lies that call us worthless and unlovable; that we deserve to be pushed aside, forgotten, rejected, and abandoned, especially when our flaws show or when our failures outweigh our success. But to accept ourselves as God’s beloved means that — regardless of what kind of holes we see in ourselves, whether our shortcomings, failures, insecurities, or resentments — we can accept ourselves as who we are because God accepts us as His children first. We are pleased with ourselves because God is pleased with us first. And we deserve to be loved because God loves us first.

Again, What does it mean to be with oneself?

I believe it means to acknowledge that our life is a gift from God to be shared. Today’s parable begins with someone’s plea, asking Jesus to tell his brother to give him a fair share of the family inheritance. We assume that this is justice, a fair distribution of goods. But Jesus wasn’t interested in a fair distribution because a fair distribution doesn’t lead to a relationship, but rather leads to division and separation. Jesus was interested in a generous sharing of goods that builds relationships. Our life is made up of relationships, being with God and being with one another. And for this relationship to happen, we share our gifts and lives with others. And even our possessions “exist to make relationship, not to insulate us from them.”[5]

What a church like ours seems to offer to each one of us is a community, especially our presence to one another. It is true. But being with one another is not an end in itself. The ultimate goal, which also is the good news of Jesus Christ, is that by being with one another, may we find ourselves through being with God. All of us struggle with our personal demons, personal struggles, of our own. No one is immune to the feelings of the likes of loneliness. My prayer is that this community becomes a space where we may truly find ourselves as a beloved gift of God that is worthy to be shared and enjoyed. This is the kind of gift called life Jesus promises: an abundant life. Let us pray.

[1–5] Samuel Wells, Incarnational Ministry.